our crimson blood and the white sheets
by emilyforprez
Summary: & this is what you hear, this is what you see, it's all around you.


**A/N: **You should all be warned that this is pretty damn sad. In my creative writing class, our exam was to write on a prompt. Her prompt was, "A day in the life of a(n) _______. Be creative."

I chose a drunk driver / alcoholic, since it hits pretty close to home, as my dad is a recovering alcoholic.

I work better when I can imagine the characters in my head, and I don't have to create new personalities and appearances, so in my head, I was thinking of Puck, Quinn, and Finn as the characters in this story. I just changed the names as I wrote it in class.

I decided to put this up as fanfiction as a result. Here's to hoping I did well on the exam. I do _not _want to retake the 8th grade.

The main thing here is timing. You can choose this to be before the pilot or after the pilot. I didn't pick a specific time. Also, no one knows how long Puck, Quinn, and Finn were friends, but we get the idea they knew each other for a while before the show, so I improv'd.

Enjoy, guys. And don't kill me.

* * *

If there had been a warning that day, a foreshadow, perhaps you would have taken a picture. You would have recorded their voices, their dimpled grins; you would have reminded them that you valued their friendship, you would have savored it. But you had no way of knowing. The sun rose easily, the finches chirped that morning, and the sky was a clear, baby-blue.

You're lying in a hospital bed. The sheets are white, the room white; everything is so stark and colorless that you feel it must be a dream. The worst part is the noise, or lack-thereof; for there is no sound, no inkling of audible peeps. Every sense is numb.

Then there is a flash of red, and this is what you see; this is what you hear:

(A screech of brakes, Quinn's terrified scream. "No!" - a wailed protest, belonging to Finn - "Slow down!" The whites of their eyes.)

(The thud of impact, the sickening sound of bone crushing. The blood. Oh, God, there's so much blood.)

(A deer, lying stiff and limp and dead on the side of the road, coveted in darkness, a means to the end.)

(The blood is everywhere. It's pooling at your feet, washing over your eyes, slicked on your skin.)

("Quinn?" Why isn't she answering you?)

("Finn?" Your voice is quivering and crickets are chirping ominously.)

This is what you feel:

(Adrenaline. You're so inebriated, you don't recognize the pulsing through your veins. It whispers over your skin. A voice is begging you to stop.)

(Fear - it clutches your heart, tearing at your skin. Your feet press against the cool brakes, but there is no strength. There is nothing.)

(Your head collides with the dashboard. The car swerves, screeching, flying into the ditch. Darkness and silence covers you.)

(Oh, God, the blood. There's so much of it.)

The reliving of the event is so vivid and terrifying that you find yourself screaming all over again, thrashing in the sheets. This does not exist. This isn't real. This is a dream.

You awake - and the hospital bed is cold underneath your bare back. The room is still very white, very stark; this is not a dream.

(Something changed while you were asleep. Something was broken.)

With half-lidded eyes, you see her. Quinn is sitting on a generic metal chair, gauze patched on her temple and a sling on her shoulder. Her blonde hair is swathed over her face - her green eyes are hidden by the curtain of silky waves.

And, oh, God, how could so much guilt and sorrow and love be present in that single moment? You were dead and she was already mourning your life. You are missing the time that flew by when you were asleep.

"Quinn?" Your voice is raw, as if it is a shattered prayer. Tender, as if you've been screaming for hours, for days.

Quinn's head shoots up and there is fervent hope shining in her green eyes. She has never looked more beautiful. How long had you been asleep? Days? Years? She looks so completely shocked, as if she was sure you were dead, that you wonder if she'll faint.

"Oh, my God," she whispers, eyes wide and brimming with tears, "you're awake."

You wish so much to say something. You want to tell her you're sorry, that you didn't know what would happen. You want to tell her that you didn't know. That you're young and foolish and you had no idea.

(The gauze on her temple. The sling on her shoulder. The ache in her eyes. All this is your doing.)

There is such a huge lump in your throat that you can't say a word.

(Alcohol burns such a delicious trail down your throat. "Who's driving?")

("I'll drive." They stare uneasily as you twist the key in the ignition.)

Quinn's eyes are soft now, understanding. She stands up, leaning over your hospital bed. She smells of warm nights and even brighter days, of broken promises and fragments of childhood. She presses a kiss to your forehead, her sweet breath fanning over your skin, thrumming in your blood. Her scent is intoxicating.

"I thought I'd lost you," she murmurs brokenly into your skin, admitting the harshest truth. Her lips are tender and feather-soft.

Her eyes are filled with such pain, such indescribable hurt, reaching into the depths of her heart, and guilt claws at your belly. How could you do this to her? To...

("No!" - a wailed protest, belonging to Finn - "Slow down!")

("Finn?" Your voice is quivering and crickets are chirping ominously.)

"Where's Finn?" you ask, because it's the first question that drifts to your mind. You imagine Finn with a cast on his arm and a grin on his face, boasting about what wimps his friends are.

A dark look flits over Quinn's eyes and all words die in your throat. The look in her gaze, the way she looks down, says it all.

She bites her lip and turns away.

(Finn's dead. Finn. Your best friend of eight years, your partner in crime. The joker, the fighter, the protector. Finn's dead. This is your doing.)

Quinn looks back at you and she knows. She knows how much you want to apologize. She knows, and it doesn't make it better. It doesn't help.

You feel her shift, her lips pressing another soft kiss to your skin, her scent intoxicating, her waves in a cloud over your face. You inhale her smell, her essence.

"Open your eyes," she whispers quietly, breath warm and moist as it hits your sweat-slicked forehead, "so I can close mine."

"What?" Your eyes widen and your eyebrows furrow. "My eyes _are_ open."

Quinn shakes her head silently. "Open your eyes," she repeats monotonously, a hitch in her breath.

(Her hands are mist. Her eyes are fog.)

(You open your eyes.)

This is what you see; this is what you hear:

("Clear!" Men in white coats swarm around a hospital bed, and the air is thick with the smell of blood and dying patients. The hospital room is cold and white and familiar.)

(There is an opening in the crowd of bustling surgeons and it's not you lying on the hospital bed, jolting up a couple feet as they press electric currents through your bloodstream. It's not you dying on the bloody hospital bed.)

(It's Quinn.)

("Clear!" They try again, hoping, praying. Electricity runs through her, coursing through her. The screen on the side of the bed shows her fading heartbeat.)

(Beep. Beep. Beep...)

This is what you feel:

(Nothing.)

This is the truth.

(This is reality.)


End file.
